White Rot and the Quarantine Zone, revisited

It’s garlic planting season in the northern hemisphere. A few years ago, while helping out with the garlic harvest at a local farm, I had the chance to learn about some of the challenges involved in growing garlic in southern Idaho. Apart from the fact that it is a very labor intensive crop to grow, one of the major challenges stems from a disease called white rot – easily one of the worst diseases that garlic and onion growers face.

White rot is caused by a fungus (Sclerotium cepivorum), and it affects all plants in the Allium genus, including garlic, onions, chives, and ornamentals. The disease causes the leaves of alliums to die back, their bulbs to decay, and their roots to rot, ultimately turning the plants to mush. Sclerotia, the dormant stage of the fungus, are small (about the size of a poppy seed), black, spherical structures that can survive in soil for more than 20 years. They remain dormant until the exudates of allium plants awaken them, at which point they begin to grow, unleashing their destruction. Sclerotia can be moved around by farm equipment, floods, irrigation water, wind, and by attaching themselves to plant material. Once this fungus has established itself in a field, it is extremely difficult to eradicate, making the field virtually unfit for allium crops.

The threat of white rot and the monetary damage that it can cause led to the establishment of a quarantine zone in southern Idaho in order to protect its $55 million dollar a year onion industry. Due to the quarantine zone (which encompasses 21 counties), all garlic that is grown for seed within the zone must be inspected and certified. [“Seed” in this case refers to the garlic cloves themselves; onions, on the other hand, are grown from actual seeds and are not subject to the same protocol.] Any seed garlic that is brought into the zone must go through a rigorous testing process in order to ensure that it is free of the white rot pathogen before it can be planted. Garlic is a specific threat because the cloves can readily carry sclerotia, compared to onion seeds, which are not likely to harbor them.

This process significantly limits the amount and variety of garlic that can be grown in the quarantine zone. While the quarantine is essential for warding off the threat of this particular pathogen, it stifles the garlic growing industry and makes it difficult for new garlic growers to establish themselves.

Garlic farming is already incredibly demanding due to the amount of time and physical labor that goes into planting, harvesting, drying, grading, etc. The quarantine, while understandable, is an added challenge. Learn more about this issue by listening to this story on PRX.